New Features in Version
7.1
There are a
number of new options available to instructors in Blackboard
7.1. Here are some important things you should know about this
new version:
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Discussion Board
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Assessments & Gradebook
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Visual
Text Box Editor
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Send Email
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Spell Check
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Course Options
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Blackboard
Backpack
Discussion Board
Forum and Thread Grading
Several new features have been added to the Discussion Board
expanding it beyond its primary use as a communication medium
and transforming it into a comprehensive and interactive
teaching tool that fosters academic exchange and debate.
Grading settings are now available when creating or modifying a
forum in a Course or Organization. When grading is enabled for a
forum, Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and users with the
Grader or Manager forum roles will be able to access the Grade
Forum Users page. Instructors may choose to grade the forum or
to enable thread grading within the forum. If thread grading is
enabled for the forum, Instructors have the option to turn
grading on or off for each new thread.
Discussion Board Statistics
Discussion Board statistics are now a part of the Performance
Dashboard. The total number of forums in which the user has
participated is displayed for each user in this column. Clicking
on the number in this column directs the instructor to a user
detail page that displays links to all forums in which the user
has participated and usage statistics for the user in each
forum. Statistics displayed include:
Additionally, the instructor can grade discussion board
participation from this page.
Forum Moderation and User Management
By
default, Discussion Board users are given forum roles based on
their course, organization, or system role. Instructors and
Leaders are given the Manager role by default. Managers control
user privileges within the Discussion Board through the use of
roles. For example, the Manager may delegate responsibility for
reviewing posts to a Moderator.
When creating a forum or modifying a forum’s settings,
instructors have the option of forcing moderation. If moderation
is enabled, when a user other than a Moderator or Manager
submits a post, the post is saved to the Moderation Queue. New
posts are displayed in the queue for review and publication. If
a post is returned, a return message can be attached to the post
allowing the Moderator to inform the user why the post was not
accepted for publication.
By
default, Discussion Board users that are assigned to a group are
allowed to create threads in the Group Discussion Board forum.
This means that group users can now beginning using the
Discussion Board immediately and do not have to wait for the
instructor to create a forum and begin a thread.
Rate Posting
Post rating allows users to rate posts in the forum on a scale
of one to five stars. When enabled, post rating is a simple yet
effective tool for peer review.
Thread Subscriptions
The Subscribe to Thread notifies users each time a new post is
added to the thread. The notification is enabled by the user and
sent to the email address stored in the user’s Personal
Information. Users will not be able to enter a different email
address to which notifications will be sent to prevent spam from
being generated from the Discussion Board. This feature is
available to all users with a forum role other than “blocked” if
the feature is enabled for the forum.
Enhancements of Existing Features
The following enhancements improve the user experience in the
Discussion Board:
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Instructors
can copy Discussion Board forums to the same Discussion
Board or to another Discussion Board in the course
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Users can
save posts as drafts, allowing them to work on a post over
more than one Blackboard session until the post is ready for
publishing.
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Instructors
now have an availability option for all forums on the
Add/Modify Forum page. The availability option replaces the
functionality of archiving forums. Forums that were archived
before an update to 7.1 will become Unavailable after the
update process.
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The
Discussion Board uses Adaptive Release rules and other
availability rules such as Date set on any tool links to the
Discussion Board.
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Searches can
be limited or expanded to include current forum, current
thread, or all forums in the course.
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Users can
group posts into Collections. Collections can be sorted and
filtered to customize the Collection for easy viewing and
printing.
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Instructors
can now “lock” a forum to prevent additional posts, but
allow users to read existing threads. This feature replaces
“archive” forum
Assessments & Gradebook
Multiple Attempts
Assessments may now be set to allow unlimited attempts or a
specific number of attempts. The Gradebook displays all of the
attempts. The Gradebook item is scored based on grading option:
last attempt, first attempt, highest score, lowest score, or
average of scores. Additionally, an Override field has been
included so that the instructor can override the score
independent of any attempts.
Now that all attempts are visible in the Gradebook, the clearing
options have been enhanced as well. The instructor may choose to
clear (or delete) the last attempt, first attempt, highest
attempt, lowest attempt, or all attempts within a specified date
range. This action may be performed by item (for all students at
once) or by user (for a specific user).
Self-Assessment Options
The deployment of tests has been enhanced to permit
Self-Assessment in two forms: allow the instructor and student
to view the grade, or only allow the student to view the grade.
In each case, the grade is not included in the final score for
the student.
When deploying a
test in a course, the instructor should uncheck the option
called Include this test in
Gradebook score calculations
to allow students
to take the test without affecting their overall score. Both the
instructor and the student will still be able to review the
results of the test. This option was previously only available
through the Gradebook but is now also available in the course
content area when deploying a test.
The second self-assessment option, called Hide the score of
this test from the Gradebook will allow the student to take
the test without displaying the results to the instructor.
Test and Survey Import/Export
The Test and Survey Managers have been enhanced to allow for
importing and exporting, much like the Pool Manager in Release
6. Users can export the test or survey package to their local
computers .
The ability to export and import tests and surveys assists with
content reuse and collaboration. When a test (or survey) is
created, creation settings are determined, questions and answers
are developed, and metadata is associated. Now, all of that
information can be reused simply by exporting the entire test to
the local computer, and then importing it into another course’s
Test or Survey Manager. Once the test or survey has been
imported, any modifications may be made to customize it for the
other course.
Extra Credit
When creating a test, questions may now be marked as extra
credit only. This means that the points possible for the entire
test will not include the points possible for that question. If
the question is answered correctly, the question points will be
added to the points correct, but if the question is answered
incorrectly, there is no score penalty.
Customized Feedback
Feedback options were previously organized into four groups:
score only, score + detailed results, all of the above + correct
answers, and all of the above + detailed results, all of the
above + feedback. These options have been ungrouped so that
users may select any combination of the score, submitted
answers, correct answers and feedback to be displayed to the
student at the end of an assessment.
Enhanced Submission Reports
The submission report for assessments now includes the following
user information: First Name, Last Name, Course Name, Username,
Course ID, name of the Assessment, and date/time of submission.
This may be used as verification by the student that they have
indeed submitted the assessment. Some instructors may require
students to print this as a permanent record of the activity.
Visual Text Box Editor
Cross-Browser, Cross Platform Support
The Visual Text Box Editor is now available to users running any
supported browser.
The Visual Text Box Editor is compatible with the following
browsers on Windows Operating Systems:
The Visual Text Box Editor will not work with older versions of
these browsers. Instead, the standard options for entering text
will appear.
The Visual Text Box Editor is compatible with the following
browsers on Macintosh Operating Systems:
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Safari 2.0
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Mozilla
Firefox 1.0
When run on Safari, the Visual Text Box Editor Lite Version
appears. The Lite Version does not include the button controls
for several features because Safari does not yet support those
rich-text editing features. Some features that are not
accessible from a button in the Lite Version may still be
activated using keyboard shortcuts. For example, the cut, copy,
and paste functions may still be used through the keyboard
shortcuts.
Macintosh users may also download and use the free Mozilla
Firefox 1.0 (or higher) Web Browser to use all the features of
the Text Box Editor.
Firefox users, on
all operating systems, must perform an extra step to enable the
cut, copy, and paste functions. This is a function of the
Firefox browser, and not Blackboard applications. The first time
an attempt is made to cut, copy, or paste text in the Visual
Text Box Editor, a message from Firefox will appear explaining
that the action is not allowed. A link is provided for
information on how to enable the cut, copy, and paste functions
by editing a Firefox configuration file. The link currently
points to
http://www.mozilla.org/editor/midasdemo/securityprefs.html.
Please check with Firefox for the most up-to-date information on
using rich-text tools for cut, copy, and paste. Macintosh users
may find that this does not fully resolve the problem,
particularly because Fireflox does not permit pasting text from
Microsoft Office files on Mac. To accomplish this task, paste
the text into a basic text editor, such as TextEdit or Notepad
and then paste the text into the Visual Text Box Editor.
Send
Email
Every email sent via Blackboard
includes the Course ID in the subject line, making incoming
email easier to manage, sort, and filter.
Spell Check
Spell Check has been added to
Email, the Glossary tool and
Assignment comments.
Course
Options
No more waiting! Course
import/export/archive and restore functions are now
asynchronous. Also, Intelligent Course Copy
allows instructors to choose whether course cartridge content
should be copied. If the content is secured and requires student
keys for access, these restrictions are copied as well.
Blackboard Backpack
A tool which faculty and students
can download, allowing them to synch content from the Blackboard
system to their personal computer or tablet PC. NOTE:
To use Blackboard Backpack, additional software must be
purchased by the user.